Afghan police recover bodies of 8 security troops

KABUL, Afghanistan 
Afghan security forces have recovered the bodies of five policemen and three intelligence agents who were kidnapped by insurgents two days ago in eastern Afghanistan, an official said Saturday.

Gunmen abducted the eight security troops on Thursday in the Day Mirdad district of Wardak province, said provincial spokesman Shahidullah Shahid.

The bodies were discovered late Friday and taken to the provincial capital city of Maidan Shahr early Saturday, Shahid said. He added that three suspected insurgents have been arrested in connection with the kidnapping and killings.

Wardak province has been the scene of heavy fighting between international troops and the Taliban. It was also in Wardak that insurgents shot down the U.S. Army Chinook early this month, killing 30 American troops, seven Afghan soldiers and an Afghan interpreter.

The violence in the province prompted the Wardak governor's office to take the unusual step of publicly rebuking the Afghan military.

The office said in a statement that Afghan army troops have enough personnel to secure the province, but fail to do so because the soldiers are confined to a few checkpoints along major roads.

It accused the Afghan military of "not chasing the enemies" and failing to make the connections with the local population necessary to protect the populace.

The statement said the Taliban continues to threaten local residents despite being outnumbered by Afghan security forces. It also accused the Afghan army of consistently failing to follow through with plans made during interagency security meetings in Wardak.

The U.S. military had planned to handover a joint combat outpost in the Tangi Valley area of Wardak, near the site of the U.S. helicopter crash, to the Afghan army in April. Afghan commanders refused to take over the camp, which was then briefly occupied by the Taliban, according to military officials and local townspeople.

Gen. Mohammad Zahir Azimi, a spokesman for Afghanistan's Defense Ministry, dismissed the criticism as the complaints of a provincial office about a national institution. "The national army cannot receive orders from the provincial governors in their provinces," he said.

As the 2014 deadline for the withdrawal of NATO troops approaches, the international alliance hopes to transfer security responsibilities to the Afghan National Army. But the nascent fighting force is struggling to operate independently in many areas and lack logistical capabilities throughout the country. The army has recruited about 170,000 soldiers, but the international coalition hopes to boost that number by another 100,000.

In the south, a minivan struck a roadside bomb in the Gereshk district of Helmand province, killing five civilians, the provincial governor's office said in a statement.

In July, the United Nations reported that 1,462 civilians were killed in the first six months of this year with insurgents responsible for 80 percent of those killings. Roadside bombs and mines are the cause of most war-related civilian deaths in Afghanistan, according to the U.N.

In the west, meanwhile, two policemen and four insurgents were killed in shootout in Herat province, said Noor Khan Nikzad, a spokesman for the provincial police chief.

NATO said insurgents killed an alliance service member in eastern Afghanistan on Saturday. The alliance did not provide any further details. The death brings to 381 the number of international troops killed in 2011, and 58 in August.